OAKLAND — As the coronavirus pandemic forces many people to stay at home, Fred Finch Youth & Family Services is finding ways to embrace distance technologies for mental health therapy.

The youth center uses a combination of music, video chats and different technology platforms to help deliver therapy to clients and keep them engaged in the sessions, now that the coronavirus limits in-person meetings.

“This is not just about going to telehealth, this is about going to tele-mental health,” said David Millen, a therapist at the center.

Fred Finch first opened as an orphanage in 1891. Today, the center helps young people and their families overcome homelessness, poverty, developmental and psychiatric disabilities, and significant trauma.

“We went from fighting the technology to embracing the technology,” Millen said.

  • Therapist David Millen stands in front of a sculpture at Fred Finch Youth & Family Services in Oakland, Calif., on Thursday, Oct. 22, 2020. The nonprofit helps young people and their families overcome homelessness, poverty, developmental and psychiatric disabilities, and significant trauma. (Jane Tyska/Bay Area News Group)

  • OAKLAND, CA - OCTOBER 22: Therapist David Millen is walks through the grounds of Fred Finch Youth & Family Services in Oakland, Calif., on Thursday, Oct. 22, 2020. The nonprofit helps young people and their families overcome homelessness, poverty, developmental and psychiatric disabilities, and significant trauma. (Jane Tyska/Bay Area News Group)

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  • OAKLAND, CA - OCTOBER 22: Therapist David Millen works at Fred Finch Youth & Family Services in Oakland, Calif., on Thursday, Oct. 22, 2020. The nonprofit helps young people and their families overcome homelessness, poverty, developmental and psychiatric disabilities, and significant trauma. (Jane Tyska/Bay Area News Group)

  • OAKLAND, CA - OCTOBER 22: Therapist David Millen is photographed at Fred Finch Youth & Family Services in Oakland, Calif., on Thursday, Oct. 22, 2020. The nonprofit helps young people and their families overcome homelessness, poverty, developmental and psychiatric disabilities, and significant trauma. (Jane Tyska/Bay Area News Group)

  • OAKLAND, CA - OCTOBER 22: Therapist David Millen is displays Soundtrack, a music composing program used for positive reinforcement at Fred Finch Youth & Family Services in Oakland, Calif., on Thursday, Oct. 22, 2020. The nonprofit helps young people and their families overcome homelessness, poverty, developmental and psychiatric disabilities, and significant trauma. (Jane Tyska/Bay Area News Group)

  • OAKLAND, CA - OCTOBER 22: Therapist David Millen gets ready to leave for the day after working at Fred Finch Youth & Family Services in Oakland, Calif., on Thursday, Oct. 22, 2020. The nonprofit helps young people and their families overcome homelessness, poverty, developmental and psychiatric disabilities, and significant trauma. (Jane Tyska/Bay Area News Group)

  • OAKLAND, CA - OCTOBER 22: Therapist David Millen packs up his laptop after working at Fred Finch Youth & Family Services in Oakland, Calif., on Thursday, Oct. 22, 2020. The nonprofit helps young people and their families overcome homelessness, poverty, developmental and psychiatric disabilities, and significant trauma. (Jane Tyska/Bay Area News Group)

  • OAKLAND, CA - OCTOBER 22: Therapist David Millen leaves for the day after working at Fred Finch Youth & Family Services in Oakland, Calif., on Thursday, Oct. 22, 2020. The nonprofit helps young people and their families overcome homelessness, poverty, developmental and psychiatric disabilities, and significant trauma. (Jane Tyska/Bay Area News Group)

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Fred Finch has received funding this year from Share the Spirit, an annual holiday campaign that serves disadvantaged residents in the East Bay. Donations will help support 41 nonprofit agencies in Contra Costa and Alameda counties. The organization is using its grant for training and enhancements in telehealth equipment.

The path to successful tele-mental health services hasn’t always been smooth at Fred Finch. And the path likely will have more twists.

“The engagement over video calls is highly variable,” said Susanna Marshland, the organization’s Northern California regional vice president. “Some individuals respond better than others.”

With that in mind, the youth center has spiced up video chats with varied activities such as music, arts, games and cooking.

“We had to improvise,” Millen said. “Everything is about improvisation.”

Millen is a musician and he decided to integrate his talent into the video sessions, adding music as part of a video meeting.

“We would just start out with music as part of a therapy session and then later I would introduce them to Soundtrap, which is a virtual music studio,” where therapy clients can craft their own songs, Millen said.

“The use of Soundtrap wasn’t just a music therapy thing,” Millen said. “It was a choice time activity that we could do together that would also be creative.”

Video sessions can be appealing because young people already typically spend considerable amounts of time on screens, whether computer, phone, or tablet.

The digital screen also creates a kind of room where a client might feel more at ease with sharing and engaging during a therapy session.

“We work on specific things in the video sessions,” Millen said. “We work on anger management, distress tolerance, and impulse control.”

The use of music or other forms of art creates an additional comfort level for a young person who might feel shut off or disconnected from a video therapy session, in Millen’s view.

“It opens up an emotional door that the kids might not normally have access to,” Millen said. “They take anger or other emotions that would turn into violence and instead they put it into art.”

In some cases, especially with a client who might live in a house shared with siblings and other relatives, the lack of privacy might chill a free-wheeling discussion during a video session. So Millen employed another technology. He created high-tech workbooks that were used to record questions, responses, thoughts, and observations — all common components of a therapy session — without having to say it out loud.

“I converted the workbooks into digital fillable documents,” Millen said. “They could type on the computer and so could I. This creates what in therapy we call the container. It’s a place where they can feel safe, have privacy, and have a free discussion.”

With the digital workbooks, the computer effectively becomes the therapy room; safe and without judgment.

Marshland believes the staff has adapted to the challenges and obstacles posed by coronavirus-linked restrictions.

“I’m really proud of how we were able to pivot to telehealth,” Marshland said. “We can reach people in the way they want to be reached. Telehealth makes us much more accessible to people.”

Success at Fred Finch in the new world of social distancing depends greatly on ensuring that ongoing contacts, whether in person or remotely, are effective as possible. Keeping engaged so they get the most they can out of the mental therapy sessions, is key, Millen said.

“I’m here for a little bit. But it’s the kids who are running the race, they are the ones putting in the work,” he said.

Share the Spirit

The Share the Spirit holiday campaign, sponsored by the Bay Area News Group, funds nonprofit holiday and outreach programs in Alameda and Contra Costa counties.

To make a tax-deductible contribution, clip the coupon accompanying this story or go to www.sharethespiriteastbay.org/donate. Readers with questions, and individuals or businesses interested in making grants or contributions, may contact the Share the Spirit program at 925-472-5760 or sharethespirit@crisis-center.org.